This disclosure relates to open voice search including open voice search for geographical navigation.
Voice control of various applications and tasks can provide convenience and safety, especially in automotive applications. Automotive navigation systems, such as satellite-based navigation or Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation are increasingly common. For a given destination, drivers typically input either a street address (street name, number, city, etc.) or input a point-of-interest (POI) name. A point-of-interest is typically a specific geographic location that is of interest to a user. For example, points-of-interest can include gas stations, restaurants, malls, company names, apartment building names, businesses, monuments, landmarks, and so forth. Thus, a point-of-interest can be essentially a name for a location in which the name references a specific address. As such, users can simply remember names of locations instead of addresses of locations. POI searching is a popular feature in the automotive environment.
In some countries, point-of-interest destination searching is more popular than street address input. For example, drivers in China generally prefer inputting a point-of-interest name to navigate to a particular location. Typically, shops or buildings include some type of landmark, which may be included in a POI search. Voice-enabled point-of-interest search is one of the most popular applications in satellite navigation. This is also known as Voice Destination Entry (VDE). Such voice-enabled POI searching, however, typically has very low recognition accuracy, which can be frustrating to speakers. Accordingly, what is needed is a technique for improved accuracy of point-of-interest searching.